Framed
by Cranky Cauldron
Summary: Set just after the events of HBP. Professor McGonagall prepares to face the challenges of becoming Headmistress, somewhat unhappily. Rated for grief and mild language but nothing explicit.


Set after Half-blood Prince, singularly concerned with one character's reaction to the events – if you haven't read it, well, who _are _you?! Written years ago and recently discovered cluttering My Documents folder – if you feel in the mood for a touch of angst, _read on!_

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Framed

Minerva McGonagall, Deputy, no,_ Head_mistress of Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry... Damn it, she had to start getting that _right!_

She stood in the centre of his, no _her_ office, _damn it!_

_Damn it, damn it, damn it all to hell!_

Minerva slammed her fists down on his desk. _Her desk!_

Her angry eyes caught Fawkes perch, abandoned by the grieving phoenix, the damn _bird_ could move on, why couldn't she? With a muffled shriek she swiped at the post and sent it crashing to the ground; it bounced, clashing harshly against the stone floor.

She looked up and saw the portrait frame that enclosed a pale shadow of the man that had been Albus Dumbledore, saw the white bearded man in it sadly shake his head at her actions. The paint and canvas 2-D, a pathetic shade of a living breathing human, a joke at her expense, she glared at the man watching her silently from the confines of his angular box.

'You think a picture is worth a thousand words?' she hissed. 'I would give anything for just a few spoken words and - no – damn – picture!'

She strode across to the picture, reached up and turned it to face the wall with unnecessary force.

'No picture, no more words, no more Albus Dumbledore,' she snapped. 'The man's dead. He made his choice. If he doesn't want to be here, he doesn't have to be here!'

She realised she was talking to an empty room, a room full of the portraits of deceased Head teachers, without another living soul; the emptiness stank of death and futility, of loneliness.

Minerva sank into his, no, _her_ chair, shoulders slumping, the fury pumping her heart ebbing away as despair sapped her limbs of strength and grief swept a numbing, terrible wave of pain through her. She thrust her slender fingers into her hair and bowed her head over his desk.

'Albus come back, come back! I can't do this without you. I can't be _me _without you. I can't breathe without you. I can't, I can't I can't!'

She lifted her head again and looked around his, _damn it, _her office, but there was nobody there, there was no figure, shadow or ghostly presence, she was completely alone.

'I won't do it!' she said finally, quietly, almost sullenly. 'I won't do it Albus!'

There was still no reply.

'How dared you!' she cried, slamming her fists down on the desk again; his inkpot jumped off and an arc of ink splattered onto the floor with a wet _plattering _sound. 'How dared you Albus! How could you bloody well do this?'

The silence mocked her, an answer in the stillness she felt infuriated by, the idea that she was not worth an answer, just as in life, Albus refused to answer her in death.

'I never told you this Albus,' she murmured, lifting her chin in a characteristic display of defiance, 'but I always thought you were a complete bastard.'

Surprisingly, saying this into the vacant room made her feel better, made her feel empowered; a small cough echoed from the turned portrait and she ignored it.

'You were never particularly considerate. Polite, oh yes, but considerate, no. I never complained, but I doubt you even noticed that, or thought I had anything to complain about! I did as I was told, I did it well. I stayed eleven in your head, another wrinkly student you had guided through Hogwarts, following you around like an obedient collie, well-trained and always hoping for a _treat_.'

Her voice had grown bitter, she was snapping off each word with a distasteful twist of her mouth, a sardonic expression marring her normally pleasant features.

'You used me, Albus. Even when you bloody effing _died_ you still used me! You set me up, and I – let – you!'

For a third time she slammed her fists down on the desk top, this time so hard a numbing pins and needles sensation climbed the back of her arms and robbed the limbs of able movement.

'How can I leave now? How can I leave when you have made it so I am the only available option for head? The one everybody _expects_ to follow your example, because after all, I did it so damn well when you were alive! You're dead and _buried_ and still manipulating me!'

She made an inarticulate sound of frustration and rage from behind clenched teeth.

'If I ever thought I would be free of you – I was a _fool! _You moulded me into the person you needed me to be, without _ever_ giving thought to the woman who existed, subdued and passive beneath the surface. You made me this, _this_ _automaton_, this half-life, this future, and you damned well knew it! You _knew_ what you were doing!'

Minerva thrust herself upright, the chair shooting backwards to slam against the wall. 'ALBUS!' she screamed. 'How dared you!'

There was nothing in the duskiness of the room to answer her, a clock ticked softly, comfortably predictable with every low _tunk, thunk _of the aged hands. She waited for a while, breathing hard, disturbing the still air with her harsh gasps, but the emptiness was incontrovertible, irreversible; fact.

'You bastard,' she said quietly, solemnly, and tears glittered huge and telling, beneath the lens of her glasses. 'Albus, you bastard.'

She swivelled on her heel and walked back to the reverse of the frame, shifting the overturned chair out of the way with her boot.

'We fools who love,' she whispered, and blinked hard for several minutes. Then, reaching up with firm, steady hands, she turned the portrait of Albus Dumbledore to face front again.

'Welcome,' she said calmly. 'To the Headmistress's office.'


End file.
